


Nearly Newly Webs

by HappyLeech



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Memory Alteration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: Why don't we know who Magic Brian was engaged to?(Title from a bad spider-themed joke page)





	Nearly Newly Webs

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Spider Heaven Now](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307464) by [Blankdice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blankdice/pseuds/Blankdice). 



Two weeks after Brian leaves the moon base to look into rumours of the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, his fiancé walks into Lucretia’s office.

He fiddles with his engagement ring, somehow managing to not coat it in machine grease, oil, and dirt as he asks her if she’s heard from him.

 

“He’d call me every day for the first few days, then every second day, but I haven’t heard from him in a week now. Do you have any news from him? He isn’t in any trouble, is he?”

 

Lucretia looks at Avi over her glasses and shakes her head. She sends him back to work disappointed, but with the promise that he will be among the first to know when she manages to reach Brian.

She can’t bear to tell him that the reason that Brian has ceased communications is more than likely due to the relic than any trouble and that he’s probably fallen into its thrall. She is only grateful that the Gauntlet doesn’t seem to have been used yet, that there are no reports of a town or city being destroyed and turned into circles of black glass landing on her desk.

 

* * *

 

 

A month and a half later, Avi returns to talk to her about more than just work. He talks frantically, worried that something has happened to Brian, asks to go and look for his errant lover. His ring remains pristine despite his fiddling.

 

“We have more people now, Madam Director. Can’t you let me go down, let me look for him? I still have the coordinates—I won’t be going in blind, and I can teach someone else, Carey or Leon or Johann to man the canons.”

 

Once again Lucretia shakes her head and denies him, and he stalks out of her office fuming. She knows that he won’t run off on his own, she and Lucas are the only other members of the Bureau who know how to operate the canons, and she doubts that Lucas will be willing to send Avi planetside without her permission.

She does call for Killian though and confides her worries for Brian. If he was killed below, the Bureau will mourn. If he is held in the thrall of the relic, Killian will have to kill him.

Killian leaves the room upset but resigned, promising to keep the prospect that she’ll have to kill Brian from Avi. Lucretia doesn’t know when she’ll send her after Brian. She hopes she won’t have to send her at all.

 

* * *

 

 

Three months and four more meetings and arguments with Avi later, Lucretia can’t stall any longer and Killian is sent planetside. He pretends not to know why she is being sent to Neverwinter just as she pretends that he isn’t imbibing more than usual as he sets her up to leave.

Lucretia pretends that she isn’t toying with her employee's lives as she writes a phrase on a piece of paper.

 

“It’s for the better. It will hurt them all less if they all forget.”

 

She tries to explain herself to her reflection, to Davenport, to the painting hanging above her desk. Despite all hopes, neither Davenport nor the painting convinces her against her plan, and she leaves the scrap of parchment to sit next to the young Voidfish.

 

* * *

 

 

Several days later Killian reports in, relays information that makes Lucretia shake in sorrow once the connection is closed. Brian is lost to them, kidnapping dwarves and forging alliances with goblin gangs, all to access the relic for himself.

 

_‘Avi is Brian’s fiancé. Avi was going to get married.’_

 

The paper, the words, the memories are eaten by the baby Voidfish, and they forget. But not Lucretia, and, how could she forget, not Lucas.

 

* * *

 

 

By the end of the week, she has her friends back, has the gauntlet, and she almost lets herself celebrate that small victory despite the twin sorrows of Phandalin and Brian when Lucas storms in unannounced.

 

“I apologized to Avi, told him that I was sorry about Brian. He asked me what I meant. Said he and Brian weren’t all that close. I was invited to their wedding, Lucretia. What’s going on?”

 

They argue for what feels like hours, Lucretia refusing to admit what she’s done and how, and in the end Lucas storms out of her office, swearing that he’ll figure out what she did.

 

“I’m not exactly friends with any of these people, Lucretia, but they were about to be married! If it affects those on the ground, so be it, but the Bureau should be inoculated! Immune!”

 

The door slams behind him, and Lucretia deflates; tries to remind herself that once she has all seven pieces of the light and they're safe, she can confront her growing list of betrayals.

 

* * *

 

 

In the hanger, Avi takes a swig of his liquor of choice, a dark rum he doesn’t remember buying, and plays with the ring on his hand. He thinks it was a gift from his mother, although he doesn’t remember ever seeing it before, nor it on her fingers, and he wonders why he’s wearing it on his ring finger.

After all, it wasn’t like he was going to be getting married anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> YO so this is my first Adventure Zone fic and optimistically not my last! I'm always nervous posting in a new fandom but my sister told me that if I was finished this oneshot that I needed to post it sO HERE GOES NOTHING ~~i'm sorry if it's terrible~~
> 
> * * *
> 
> * I love Magic Brian and I wanted to write a thing about how/why his fiance isn't named in the podcast  
> *I love Magic Brian/Avi  
> * I vaguely remember that the Millers were inoculated and knew about the Hunger, so I figured that one reason why Lucas was looking into the Voidfish could be because Lucretia voidfished something that he remembers but no one else does  
> * This is 100% inspired by reading _'Spider Heaven Now'_ by Blankdice and chapters 22 and 23 of _'to play the fool'_ by DarkrystalSky and you should read both of those fic if you haven't already
> 
> * * *
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/)


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